By Clarence Spigner, Professor, Department of Health Services

with contributions from Sandra Silberstein, Professor, Department of English

(March 2011)

 

In 2006, UW-AAUP issued its State of the Faculty at the University of Washington Report Card and gave “Racial Diversity” a “C’ Grade. Almost a decade earlier, ladder ranked minority faculty comprised of African American, Asian Pacific Islander American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American all together made-up only 3% females and 7% males. By 2004, those percentages had increased to only 5% and 10% respectively. African American male and female faculty-members were only 1% each. Asian male and female faculty members were 7% and 3% respectively; Hispanic male and female faculty was 2% and 1% respectively. The percentage of Native American male and female faculty was so low they could not be registered as a percentage of the total. Comparatively, white male and female faculty represented 60% and 25% respectively.

 

The University of Washington’s own Affirmative Action Plan 2010 reported a total 26,959 employees of which 6,928 are defined as “academic personnel.” How many are ladder-ranked was not articulated. However, the University of Washington Workforce Profile – Total University: by Job Group and Title: Headcount of Faculty/Academic Personnel (October 2006) list the major categories of academic workforce as Ladder Faculty, Non-Ladder Faculty, Temporary Teaching Faculty, Research Faculty, Librarian Administrators, Librarians, Residents and Fellows, as well as “Others” such as Extension Lecturers, also Clinical Faculty (salaried) and Post-Doctoral Faculty are listed. Within each of these 10 major categories are as few as 3 to as many as 9 specific rankings which total to more than 55 overall. The AA Plan, points out that “faculty includes minorities represented in 130 or 86% of the 152 departments and women in 149 or 98% of the department.” In glowing terms the AA Plan adds: “no policies or practices excluding minorities or women from departments were found,” going on to defensively state: “…nor is there any racial or sexual discrimination in the selection process.”

 

Those 142 departments each have their own complexity, culture and personality. Many represent disciplines where external grant-funding drives and sustains the academic workforce while others are largely pedagogic. All are combinations of both. An untested but well understood assumption regarding the relative absence of racial minorities within most of their ranks is minority faculty simply not having the sufficient skill-set to survive. Unstated beliefs weaved into recruitment policies and retention practices have become the accepted excuses, such as: (1) anti-Affirmative Action initiatives have rendered a less welcoming environment for minority faculty; (2) the “birds of a feather” mythology is real enough in that minorities obviously prefer to be around their own kind and purposely avoid predominantly white environments; (3) the more qualified minorities get better offers and go elsewhere, and (4) those who have reached the summit of knowledge worthy of being associated with their white peers are quickly seduced into the private sector.

 

Beginning this year, with the “streamlined” Senate, the Chairs of the Faculty Councils on Women in Academe and on Multicultural Affairs (along with others) are no longer members of the Senate Executive Committee. There are now only three Faculty Councils represented, with no limit on how long a given Council’s chair may serve. Chairs are nominated on the basis of “the relationship of the Council's work to the Senate's upcoming agenda.” Within this self-perpetuating system, it is unclear whether/how work on women and minorities will ever be deemed sufficiently related to the Senate’s agenda.

 

As pointed out the AAUP 2006 Report Card, faculty diversity at the University of Washington continues to be more rhetoric than substance. It now deserves a failing grade of “D.”